Of Spice and Men

by Sarah Fox

  The stormy expression on his face morphed into one of surprise before shifting back to anger. He dodged around me and pushed open the door.

  I rushed to follow him out onto the promenade. “I’ll have to tell the sheriff what I heard. If you’re in league with Christine’s killer, it would be better for you to come clean now.”

  Jamal spun around, his dark eyes wide and fearful. “I’m not in league with Christine’s killer! I loved Chris.”

  “Who were you talking to yesterday?” I pressed.

  His anger made a reappearance. “Who are you to be asking me these questions?”

  “Jamal, someone you cared about has been murdered, and an innocent woman is in custody. Don’t you want to do the right thing?”

  He frowned and stared out at the ocean, his eyes as turbulent as the choppy water.

  Max appeared next to me. “Chris deserves justice.”

  Jamal stared at the ocean for another second or two before he faced us, his shoulders sagging. “It’s all such a mess.”

  “What is?” Max asked. When he got no response, he said, “Let us help you, Jamal.”

  “Why would you?” His wariness was back.

  “Because Chris thought the world of you and that’s what she’d want.”

  I held my breath as Jamal thought that over, not sure what his response would be. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and stared out at the water again before nodding.

  “Okay. Let’s talk.”

  Relieved, I led Max and Jamal to The Flip Side’s office, pausing only to let them retrieve their unfinished meals. I didn’t want Jamal to have time to change his mind.

  Once we were all seated, Jamal nudged his pancakes with his fork and began to talk. “I didn’t kill Christine, and I don’t know who did, but it definitely wasn’t Alyssa.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “I was with her when Christine was killed. Well, sort of with her.”

  “What does that mean?” Max voiced the question before I had a chance.

  Jamal poked at his pancakes again and shifted in his seat. “I was sort of spying on her.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “How do you sort of spy on someone?”

  He let his fork rest on his plate. “I saw her walking away from Chris that evening. She didn’t look happy. I followed her because…because she’s super hot and I wanted a chance to talk to her.”

  “Did you talk to her?” I asked, wondering why Alyssa wouldn’t have brought up his name as a source of an alibi if he had.

  “Nah. I didn’t have the guts in the end.”

  “So she could have returned to the trailers and killed Christine,” Max said.

  Jamal shook his head. “She didn’t. I didn’t have the guts to talk to her, but I hung around and watched her. And took some photos.” He glanced at me and Max before adding, “Like I said, she’s super hot.”

  Max and I didn’t bother to comment on that. Instead, I tried to get more information.

  “Where did she go? Did she talk to anyone else while you were watching her?”

  “When she was a couple of streets away from the trailers, she stood in the shadows and smoked a cigarette. Two cigarettes, actually. Good thing she didn’t see me. She probably would have freaked.”

  “Why?”

  “Her image,” Max said, and Jamal nodded.

  “Sorry?” I said, lost.

  Max was the one to explain. “She’s built an image for herself over the years as a very healthy person. Vegan, into yoga and cardio, and definitely no smoking cigarettes. She’s had opportunities to do commercials and appear at public events for companies and organizations that promote the same sort of values and lifestyle choices.”

  I raised my eyebrows again, surprised that Max knew so much about the actress.

  “I’ve done a lot of research on the cast members over the past few days,” he said in response to my unasked question.

  “Okay,” I said, wanting to steer the conversation back on course. “So she smoked a couple of cigarettes. Then what?”

  “She called a cab. Then she walked up the street a ways and looked through the window of a café, but it was closed. She paced up and down for a while until the cab arrived. Then she got in and the cab drove away.”

  “Any idea what time it was when she got in the cab?” Max asked.

  “Whatever time it was when the emergency vehicles started arriving. I heard the sirens when I was walking back to the trailers. By the time I found out Christine was hurt, she was already getting loaded into the ambulance. But I can get a precise time if you want. The photos I took have the time and date recorded in the file information.”

  “So Alyssa really isn’t the killer,” I concluded. “You need to tell the sheriff everything you just told us.”

  Jamal chewed on a mouthful of pancakes. “Yeah, I guess,” he said once he’d swallowed. He didn’t sound thrilled by the idea.

  I recalled his phone conversation and my impression that the person on the other end of the line had tried to dissuade him from telling anyone about Alyssa’s alibi.

  “What’s holding you back? Or who?”

  Jamal had put another forkful of pancakes in his mouth, and his chewing slowed when I asked the question, reluctance clearly written across his face.

  “Jamal?” Max prodded once the younger man had swallowed.

  “My ex-girlfriend,” Jamal mumbled.

  “Is she part of the crew?” I asked.

  “Nah. She’s an actress.”

  “With a role in The Perishing?”

  “No. She’s still in California.”

  Max had finished off his pancakes and now rested his coffee cup on his knee. “Why would your ex-girlfriend not want you to provide Alyssa with an alibi?”

  Jamal stared at what remained of his own pancakes. “She doesn’t like Alyssa.”

  “Enough that she wants her to go to jail for a murder she didn’t commit?” I had a hard time wrapping my mind around that level of animosity.

  “I know it doesn’t sound good, but she was really torn up when the female lead was taken away from her.”

  I put two and two together. “Hold on. Are you saying your ex-girlfriend is Ella Cardozo?”

  He must have heard the surprise in my voice. “What’s so crazy about that?”

  “It’s not crazy,” I said quickly. “But isn’t she a lot older than you?”

  “Twelve years. What does that matter?”

  “I guess it doesn’t,” I conceded.

  I thought over everything he’d told me and Max so far. If Ella Cardozo was in California with a badly broken leg, I couldn’t add her name to the suspect list. I also couldn’t eliminate any names that were already on the list, aside from Alyssa’s, based on Jamal’s information.

  “You said everything is a mess,” I reminded him as I recalled his words on the promenade. “What did you mean by that?”

  He stabbed his fork into the last piece of pancake on his plate. “Ella was really mad at Vince for giving her role away. She wanted him to postpone her scenes until she was better, but of course he couldn’t. The schedule was already in place, with all the people and locations booked.”

  “So?” Max prompted when Jamal paused to eat the last of his pancakes.

  He looked miserable as he chewed. “She wanted me to do stuff for her, stuff that would mess with the production and make life hard for Vince and everyone involved with the movie.”

  “You stole the props and damaged the generators,” I guessed.

  “No!” he said quickly. “I wouldn’t do it, so she dumped me. But then the stuff she wanted me to do started happening. I knew she’d found someone else to do her dirty work.”

  “Any idea who?” I asked.

  He hesitated. “If I tell you that, Ella will be even more ticked off at me.”

  “What does that matter if she’s already dumped you?” Max said.

  He frowned at his empty plate and I realized that
he was hoping she’d want to get back together with him.

  “Jamal…” I prodded.

  His shoulders sagged. “One of the production assistants. I heard him bragging that he’s got a thing going with Ella. She’s probably using him, but he doesn’t seem to realize that. He’s eating here right now. Or at least he was when we came in here.”

  “You mean Dennis? The tall guy with red hair?”

  He nodded.

  I jumped up from my seat and rushed out of the office. The table in the corner where Dennis had been sitting was now vacant, the dirty dishes yet to be cleared away.

  “The redheaded guy who was in here before,” I said to Leigh as she passed by with a pot of coffee in hand. “How long ago did he leave?”

  “A few seconds ago.”

  I dashed out the front door. On the promenade, I glanced left, then right. I caught sight of Dennis as he turned a corner, heading inland. I ran after him, catching up to him in a matter of seconds.

  “Dennis!”

  When he turned around and saw me, he frowned. “Do I know you? Oh,” he continued before I could respond, “you’re the fan who wanted autographs.”

  I didn’t bother to correct him. “Why did you leave the stolen prop on my porch?”

  Fear flickered in his eyes for half a second, but it was quickly replaced by a mask of annoyance. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  He started walking away from me, and I hurried to keep pace with him.

  “I know you’re the one who stole the props and tampered with the generators. Ella Cardozo put you up to it.”

  He came to an abrupt stop and stared at me. Anger contorted his features and his face flushed bright red. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “So your fingerprints won’t be all over the stolen props?”

  The fear that returned to his eyes was enough to show that he knew he was caught.

  “Why did you leave one of the heads on my porch?” I asked again.

  He glared at me, his anger making a comeback. “You’re nuts. I told you, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know where you live, and if I did, why would I leave anything on your porch?”

  “As a threat. Did you kill Christine Gallant?”

  His pale blue eyes widened with alarm. “I didn’t kill anyone!”

  “Then why the threat?”

  “I didn’t make any threats!” His face was a concerning shade of bright red now. “Why are you trying to pin the murder on me?”

  “It all fits. You stole the props, I’ve been asking questions about the murder, and one of the props shows up on my porch in the middle of the night. As a threat.”

  He backed away from me, shaking his head. “I have no idea how the prop showed up on your porch. It must have been one of the other ones.”

  “You mean one of the ones you didn’t steal?”

  He swallowed, and shook his head again. “You need to leave me alone.”

  Before I had a chance to say anything more, he took off at a run.

  I stared after him, processing our exchange. Once he was out of sight, I returned to the office, where Max and Jamal were waiting. I quickly filled them in on my conversation with Dennis.

  “So he’s the saboteur and the killer?” Max said.

  “I don’t know.” I thought back over the conversation. “I don’t doubt that he’s behind the sabotage, but something tells me he wasn’t lying about not being the killer. And I’m not so sure he left the head on my porch, either.”

  “So there are two prop thieves out there?” Jamal said.

  “That does sound unlikely,” I admitted.

  Jamal set his empty plate on the edge of the desk. “There’s an easy way to find out if the prop on your porch was stolen by Dennis. Once I started to suspect that he was behind the sabotage, I kept an eye on him. One time I followed him to the abandoned house—that’s how I found out about it. He was carrying a black garbage bag when he went in, but when he came out, he didn’t have the bag. I went inside after he was gone and looked around until I found the missing props.”

  “You didn’t tell anyone?”

  He shrugged and lowered his eyes. “I don’t want Ella to think I’m a rat.”

  I held back any comments on that. “How many of the heads did Dennis leave at the house?”

  “Three.”

  That matched the number of missing ones Nicola had told me about. “If we take a look at the stash, we can see if all three are still there.”

  Jamal checked his phone. “I have to get back to set.”

  “If you tell me where to find the props, I’ll go look after work.”

  “They’re in a closet in an upstairs bedroom—the front one with the ugly purple wallpaper.” He got to his feet.

  “Hold on.” Max stopped him from leaving. “Christine asked me to come here because there was a story she wanted me to cover. Any idea what that might have been?”

  Jamal shrugged. “No clue.”

  “You haven’t had any more luck with that?” I surmised.

  “No,” Max said. “If only I could get a look at Chris’s phone and laptop, but the sheriff’s got them.”

  “You think they might hold a clue?” Jamal asked.

  “It’s possible. If Christine was killed because of what she wanted to tell me about, maybe she made notes or something.”

  Jamal thought for a second. “My laptop.”

  I stacked the empty plates. “What about it?”

  “The first night we got here, Christine borrowed it. Hers kept crashing and she hated doing anything more than texting on her phone because she thought it would ruin her eyesight to stare at the little screen. And she’d loaned her tablet to Nicola, because Nic’s was broken.”

  Max’s eyes were sharp with interest. “Any idea what Chris used your laptop for?”

  Jamal shrugged. “Internet stuff?”

  “Can I take a look at it?” Max asked. “Maybe the Internet history will tell us something.”

  “Sure, but it’s at the hotel and I won’t be able to get it for you until later.”

  “If I give you my cell number, will you text me when you’re free?”

  Jamal agreed to that and we headed out of the office.

  “If you go to the abandoned house, be careful,” Jamal said to me. “The place is haunted.”

  With that warning he went on his way.

  Tommy, emerging from the washroom, raised his eyebrows at me before returning to the kitchen. I shook my head and followed Max to the cash counter, where he paid for his and Jamal’s meals. After promising to let me know if he found anything on Jamal’s laptop, he took his leave and I carried the dirty dishes into the kitchen.

  “See,” Tommy said as soon as I stepped through the swinging door, “I told you that place is haunted.”

  “It’s not haunted,” I said as he relieved me of the dishes and took them to the dishwasher.

  “You really don’t believe in ghosts?” he asked.

  I glanced Ivan’s way. He could hear everything we were saying, but he wasn’t paying us any attention.

  “I’m not entirely sure what I believe,” I confessed.

  Ghosts and the possibility of an afterlife were things I’d thought about often after losing my stepdad and step-siblings, but I’d never firmly made up my mind about them. I didn’t even know what I wanted to believe. There was, however, one thing I felt sure of. “Whether ghosts exist or not, I doubt they’re responsible for what’s going on at the abandoned house.”

  Tommy didn’t appear convinced.

  “Maybe I’ll find out later today,” I said.

  Ivan looked up sharply from the griddle where he’d just flipped several pancakes. “You’re going to that house?”

  “You were the one trying to talk me out of going there,” Tommy reminded me.

  “I know, but I need to look for something.” I explained about the props Dennis had stolen and how I wanted to find out if one
of the heads was missing from the stash.

  “You could ask if more were stolen,” Ivan said.

  “I could,” I agreed. “But if the killer’s getting worried, it’s best to keep questions to a minimum from here on out.”

  “Take Tommy with you,” Ivan ordered before returning his attention to the cooking pancakes.

  I looked to Tommy for his response.

  “Let me know when you’re ready to leave,” he said with a grin. “Maybe I can prove to you that ghosts really do exist.”

  I rolled my eyes, though not without a hint of a smile.

  Maybe ghosts did exist. But even if they did, I was far more haunted by the fact that Christine’s killer was still on the loose.

  Chapter 19

  It was the middle of the afternoon when Tommy and I left The Flip Side and set out for the abandoned house on Maple Lane. We passed by the line of trailers and the craft services tent without incident, to my relief. We saw one or two people, but none that I recognized, and there didn’t seem to be any drama unfolding for a change. When we reached the abandoned house, we paused on the sidewalk.

  “Should we try the front door?” Tommy asked, studying the house.

  “Maybe the back door,” I suggested. “Jamal got inside somewhere around the back, and we’re less likely to have the police called on us if we’re out of sight from the street.”

  “Good point.”

  I glanced over my shoulder as we headed along the side of the house. I didn’t see any sign of neighbors watching us, but that didn’t mean we were going unnoticed. Hopefully, Ray or his deputies wouldn’t show up and demand to know why we were trespassing.

  When we reached the back of the old Victorian, Tommy climbed the rickety steps to the porch.

  “Careful,” he cautioned as I followed behind him. “Some of the boards are rotten.”

  We picked our way over to the back door to find that the house wasn’t even close to being secure. The door stood open a couple of inches, and when Tommy gave it an experimental shove, it wouldn’t fit into the frame. He shrugged and yanked it all the way open.

  “Someone didn’t do a very good job of securing this place.”

  I agreed with him as I took a cautious step into the house. The floorboards creaked beneath my feet, but they otherwise seemed stable. I stood in the Victorian’s kitchen, some of the doors missing from the long-outdated cupboards, others hanging by one corner. The room had a gas stove and a large sideboard against one wall, but no other appliances or furniture. Every surface was covered in a thick layer of dust, although the floor had been disturbed by numerous footprints.